I, Emma
by Girl With The Dandelion
Summary: "I loved the feel of his touch; it kept me grounded." My version of the end, complete with mental repercussions and an inability to exist without the person you love most.


I clung to him during the plane ride; his arm held my waist and together I felt safer than I'd ever felt before. My breathing became erratic as the runway came into view. For three months, I'd fallen asleep by his side and he had woken up by mine. Three months we were all the other had. For all our talk of being rescued, deep down I didn't think it was going to actually happen.

We were going to live the rest of our lives on that island. That was the reality I had come to accept. I missed my family terribly, but he was my family now. He was my reality. That place with its beauty and dangers; that was home.  
Dean broke the silence first.

"What do we now?"

My hold on him tightened. "I don't know."

As the plane began its descent, I still hadn't reigned in my breathing.

"Dean, I can't do this."

"Hey, breathe Emma, breathe. We have to do this. We have to"

"How am I supposed to not see you every day?"

He closed his eyes and sighed. "I haven't figured that out yet. But we have to do this. We have to see them. We have to go back."  
I knew he was right. I knew I was being completely irrational. That didn't make this any easier. I tried to control myself. I faked a smile.

"It's funny. Our roles; they've reversed. Me trying to go back to the island, you wanting to go home. When did that happen?"  
He kissed the top of my head. "It was never about the island Emma. It was always you. It was you I was trying to keep."

I sniffled and nodded. When had I started to cry?

"And now I'm trying to keep you."

His breath hitched and I kissed his neck, my tears mixing with his.

* * *

We expected a madhouse when we landed, but for some reason neither of us had anticipated the news crews. We tried to fight our way through to get to our families, but they were apart from each other. Eventually, a reporter managed to sidle her way in between us, and immediately I felt the loss of his hand in mine. Mom pulled me into an embrace, and I felt dad wrap his arms around us. I stretched my hand out, hoping I would feel his fingers lock into mine but instead I felt Stacy take hold. I could feel myself losing control of my breathing again. The room was spinning and I held back the bile that so desperately wanted to be released. I'd never done well with plane rides and this one in particular was a nightmare.

When Mom finally let me go, I closed my eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but I couldn't. Right before I thought I was going to pass out, I felt him. He came so close to me, I could reach out and grab him. And so I did. I pulled him to me and I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest. I stopped gasping and just started to cry. There was too many people; too many faces.

"Can we leave? We need to leave," he said. Someone responded and began to usher us out. I kept my gaze pointed to the ground, watching our feet as we were paraded to our cars. I could hear the camera's clicking and the flashes illuminated the walkway. Over and over I could hear them talking about the 'boy and girl survivors.' That's what we were to them. Two lucky kids who made it out alive. I didn't feel like a child anymore though.

"Come on Emma, let's go," Dad said. This was what I had been terrified of all day long. A night without Dean. I shook my head against Dean's side.

"I can't."

Our parents all glanced at the other. "Emma, you have to." Mom started to reach for me, but I pulled back.

"Mom, I can't."

I was frantic; I probably looked crazy. No. I looked like I had been stuck on an island for three months. "I can't leave him."

"And I won't leave her," he said.

"Sweetie, I understand-,"

"No, no you don't. And I hope you never will. Don't understand this. Don't even try. I wouldn't wish it on you Mom. But this is my reality now. Dean is my reality. And I can't face a night without him. Not right now." Not ever really.

Her tone of voice changed from sad to stern. "You don't have a choice."

I could feel the panic coming back. Every damn time I thought I'd finally let it go it became back even more menacing than before.

"Barbara, we didn't anticipate this."

Mom's eyes widened and she turned to dad. "Are you honestly suggesting we let them stay the night together? She's only 17 Phil!"

Dad put his hands on her shoulders. "If it's on the couch out in the open, at this point I don't care. I just want her home."

Dean's dad had been silent up until that point. "Well I have my objections about all this."

"Dad, I'm 18. It's my decision and I can't leave her."

I had started to shake and I could feel my vision fading. The last thing I heard was mom screaming as I fell to the floor.

* * *

Sunlight poured through the blinds and bathed my blanket in its yellow glow. My limbs each ached in familiar places and I stretched my hand to the side, expecting to make contact with Dean's back. When it brushed empty sheets I jolted upwards.

"Dean? Dean?" Hyperventilating, I started to scream. I relented when I saw his body shoot up from the floor.

"Emma? What's wrong?"

I crawled to the edge of the bed and wrapped my arms around him. "You weren't there. You weren't there."

His hands brushed my hair back and he kissed my forehead.

"I'm right here Emma. I'm here. It's going to be okay," he whispered.

I shook my head against him and all of our parents burst into the room.

"What's going on?"

Instead of my tears stopping, they just continued on. Because I knew. I knew they wouldn't allow this. They wouldn't let Dean stay here and I know I wouldn't be able to stay with him. Why couldn't they understand? This wasn't some stupid teenage fantasy. I didn't want Dean next to me so that I could sleep with him at our leisure. It wasn't a want; it was a need. I needed him by my side so that I could sleep. I needed him so that I didn't lose my mind. If he was here with me, I felt a little more sane.

"I can't do this mom. I can't do this without him."

"Sweetie, it's gonna take some time. We're going to get you both to a doctor and they're going help you two work through this. It's separation anxiety honey. It's very common in cases like this."

I brought my hands to my head and rolled my eyes. "Cases like this? What would you know about cases like this? Put whatever label you want on it mom, but I'm not leaving his side." He held me against him in agreement.

"Emma, I'm sorry but you're seventeen. This is not up to you."

I balled my hands into fists. "Mother! Do you see me right now? I mean really see me? I have a hundred bags under my eyes. I look like I've spent ten years in a tanning bed. My hair is a mess. I'm shaking. I can't even see straight right now. I can still smell the ocean. And I am mid panic attack because he wasn't there this morning. He was still in the room and I am having this reaction. Do you honestly think separating me from him is what's best for us?"

She stood her ground. "I absolutely do. We can fix this."

"Mom, I'm not broken. You can't fix me. This is something that happened. This is my reality. I cannot breathe if I don't know he's okay. I just can't. Three months. We were gone for three months and while you worried and searched for us, we were there."

Dean swiped at his eyes, no doubt brushing tears away. "She's right Mrs. Robinson. We knew you guys were out there looking, but every single day you looked, we were trying to live. I wouldn't have made it the first night without Emma, and every night after that. Having Emma there was a gift. She saved me. And I saved her. Without each other, you wouldn't have either of us right now. That's a bond that's not going to break. It's there. Forever. So send us to whatever doctors you want. Do whatever you think necessary, but if I have to move next door I will. Emma may be seventeen but I'm not. I can do that. I can move."

I hoped he would. I thought I could see mom falter, but I was wrong.

"Dean, you need to leave. Now."

Dad tried to talk to mom but she yelled over him. "Get out. Now!"

"Mom, please," I sobbed out.

She furiously shook her head. "No! You are my daughter. You are my _child. _This is not up for debate or discussion. You are not having some boy sleep in your room every night and you're certainly not sleeping in his. This is absolutely ludicrous we're even discussing this!"

I collapsed to my bed as Mr. McMullen dragged Dean from the room. I could hear him yelling all the way down the stairs and out the door, which was a miracle of its own given the octave of my screaming. Mom rushed up to me and took me by the shoulders.

"Emma! Emma listen to me! _This_ is reality. That island? Those three months? That is the past Emma. This is your present. Your life here is what's happening. That boy? He is going to be fine, with or without you there. He's going to be just fine, and so will you! This is going to take time, sweetheart, but you have to pull through. For you. And for him. You have to get used to this. You have to."

I don't remember when I stopped crying.

* * *

Our first therapy appointment was two days later. Two entire days without hearing from him or seeing him. When I saw him in the waiting room, I wanted to run into his arms, but my mother held me back. "No, Emma. No." It took everything I had not to reach around and just slap her. I loved my mother so much, and I could even rationalize what she was trying to do. But there was no rationalizing this. This wasn't a rational situation.

Mom got her surprise though when the doctor wanted to see both Dean and me separate from our parents.

"With all due respect Doctor, she's a minor. I'm going into that room."

Doctor Frances raised an eyebrow. "With all due respect Mrs. Robinson, I won't get the whole story of what they've been through with you in the room. You want an honest diagnosis, you wait out here."

Mom gaped at him, but sat down. As soon as she was no longer separating us, Dean rushed over and held me to his side.

"Are you okay? Did you sleep okay?"

I held back a sob. "No. I kept waking up really uncomfortable. I miss the sand. And god I missed you. I never thought I'd miss the sand though."

He kissed my hair and we walked into the office hand in hand. I could hear mom huff as we disappeared from her sight.

"You both have been through hell and I'm not interested in pretending everything is okay. I'll be fully honest with you, but you're gonna have to give me the same courtesy. There is doctor patient confidentiality; contrary to what your mother wants, being seventeen you're past the age of consent therefore, I don't have to tell her what's discussed in this room. That being said, judging by your body language, you two have had sex?"

I took a shaky breath and nodded. My cheeks must have been bright red, because the doctor smiled apologetically.

"I know it's not something you want to talk about it but in all honesty, given your circumstances on the island, I'm not surprised. I'm told you two knew each other before all of this happened?"

Again, I nodded, but Dean spoke up.

"Vaguely. More like we knew of each other. We'd see each other in the halls or in class. We weren't really friends though."

The doctor nodded along. "So what happened? Did you two fall off the boat?"

I answered him this time. "I was accidentally pushed off. Dean jumped in after me"

The doctor tilted his head to the side.

"You jumped in after a girl you weren't even friends with?"

Dean awkwardly shrugged his shoulder. "I told you I knew her."

The doctor shook his head. "You told me you knew of her."

Dean furrowed his eyebrows. "I guess I did. Yeah I mean, she needed help so I tried to help her."

Dr. Frances wrote something down and then looked back at us.

"You tried to save the girl you had a crush on. I get it."

Dean's mouth dropped open. "I don't have crushes."

"Everyone has crushes and its very evident that two of you felt something for the other before this island experience."

"I guess there's truth to that. I would always sneak glances at Dean, but I never really thought about it before. I had too much to think about. School and home and college. I didn't have time to think about why I always looked at you." I clasped Dean's hand and laced my fingers through his. I loved the feel of his touch; it grounded me.

"And now? What about those things?"

I looked back over to Dr. Frances. "School? I want to get back to it. I want to remember my old patterns; fall back into my rhythm. As far as home, I can't express how much I missed my family. But it's really hard because they don't understand. They could never understand. The only one who understands is Dean. And I'm not allowed to see him. I know why, but now I don't understand. Just seeing him makes me feel so much better. Knowing he is there makes me feel okay inside. It makes me feel like I'm not alone. He used to chase away the noises at night. He would wake up with me if I had a nightmare. He was there when I was cold. He was there when I was alone. And my family expects me to go from having that security every day to not even be allowed to speak to him. I can't do it. I can feel myself going crazy. When he's not in eyesight, this panic settles over me. My mind starts wandering to all these different insane possibilities. Did he fall and now he's hurt? Did another panther attack? Is he sick? Is he okay? Does he need me? And we're not island so these fears I have scare me so much. It's like if I don't see him, I don't know where I am. It feels like I'm still on the island but this time I'm alone."

Dean wiped away the tears that had fallen and I kissed his palm. This was everything I wanted to say to mom, but she would never let me. I'd had this sitting on my chest since we first landed and for the first time in three days I took a huge deep breath. I didn't feel dizzy and I didn't want to vomit. This was what I needed. Dean by my side and no one interrupting me.

"And what about you Dean? How do you feel when Emma isn't there?"

Clearing his throat, Dean answered him.

"I feel kind of lost. I definitely feel helpless. I mean half the time on the island it was Emma taking care of the two of us. She kept track of our supplies, she made sure everything was working the way it should. Sometimes I felt kind of useless, but she gave me a purpose. For most of my life, I've felt inadequate and unnecessary. Like if I died, no one would care. No one would miss me. My dad and I have never really been close and to be perfectly honest, I'd thought he would have given up the search for me after the first day. I've just never been important, but Emma made me feel important. Even though she was the brains on the island, she still made me feel necessary. She always had something for me to do, and she was always there if I needed help. I wasn't a useless face in the crowd. To Emma, I was Dean. I wasn't that loner guy who sat in the back of the class anymore. She gave me a reason to want to fight to survive. I fought for her. I learned how to hunt and how to live for her. I'd always been lonely, but because of Emma, never once did I feel alone on that island. When I wake up and I don't see her right next to me, that same panic she described over takes me. I can't breathe; I feel sick. It's like I'm on that island and god knows what happened to her. When I close my eyes I can still feel the warm breeze and I can hear the rustle in the bushes. I can feel the sand and I can hear the ocean. But I don't feel her and that scares the shit out of me. I don't feel her and it's like I can't feel at all."

Again, the doctor wrote something down.

"Have the two of you tried explaining how you feel to your families?"

We both shook our heads.

"No one's really let us. With me, I get the speech about how I'm only seventeen and I don't know what's right for me. And they basically tell Dean to just stay away. They said it'll fix us if we're apart."

Doctor Frances looked sad, as if he'd heard this story before.

"You're not broken, either of you. You're traumatized, that's for sure. But you are most definitely not broken. Your families are going through their own trauma. Just like they will never understand your experiences, you will never understand theirs. Its shitty, but it's raw. That's unfortunately this sucky deck you've been dealt. It seems like a never ending cycle of garbage and it's messy and complicated. And unfortunately, I can't make either party understand the other. But I can assure you, you are absolutely not broken. There is nothing wrong with either of you. To be honest, I expected you to have more issues than that of being separated from one another. I can't make your parents allow you to be together, I really can't. But I can at least tell them that I think seeing one another every day really is whats best. Your lives changed forever and there is no going back to the way your lives used to be. The two of you are irrevocably involved together. To take that away from you is not the correct course of action. Again, I cannot make either of your parents do what I think is best, however, I can strongly recommend it. Daily interaction became a coping mechanism for the two of you. We've already established the two of you had some sort of feeling for the other before the island, and during the island that blossomed into something that only the two of you will ever be able to understand. Daily interaction is still your coping mechanism, and I will do my best to make sure that's not taken from you."

I couldn't hold it back anymore. I broke down sobbing. Dean wrapped me in his arms and the doctor handed me a box of tissues. To have someone, to have an _adult_, explain to me that I was okay and that Dean was okay, that we were okay together, was more than I'd ever expected out of therapy.

"Now, I don't want you to think this is it for the three of us. I want to see you both twice a week. Once together, and once apart. This isn't going to be easy. Readjusting is going to take effort. However, I'm confident that the two of you are going to be just fine."

* * *

And we were. It did take months before the thought of not being in the same room as Dean didn't leave me feeling paralyzed. It took a year before we could be away from the other for more than a week. When it was time for me to choose a college, my parents almost had a heart attack when they realized Dean was coming with me. And when he asked me to marry him when I was twenty-three, I didn't have to be afraid of being apart from him anymore.

That fear never totally disappeared. It was more subtle, buried beneath a layer of strength it had taken me years to develop, but it was never gone. It was like a scar. The wound had healed, but it left behind a vicious reminder. Sometimes I still miss the sand and I think that scares me the most. Missing the island…our therapist had told us it was normal, but six years later and it felt the furthest thing from normal. But I do. I miss the sand. I miss the warmth. But now, on our wedding day, I know I will never have to miss Dean again. He's been apart of my soul for six years, and now he was cemented into my being.

"I, Emma, take thee Dean…"

**Author's Note: **Yeah I don't even know where this came from. I watched this movie for the first time yesterday and I immediately started to write this. I wrote it as if it were me though. You'd have to surgically remove me from my survival partner once we were back on the mainland. There's no way in hell I'd be able to be parted from them and be okay. I already know I would not be able to handle that mentally and emotionally. And I feel like the ending wasn't that realistic. At least, for the average teenage girl having gone through what Emma did, I seriously doubt she'd just be all hunky dory with returning to her everyday activities. There'd be mental repercussions to her experiences and so I wrote this. I honestly hope I did the story justice. Leave a review if you can because they make me LIVE LONG AND PROSPER.


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